Thanatophobia
by Mashpotatoe Queen
Summary: [Thanatophobia: the fear of losing someone you love.] Sun and Moon: The whole class switches pokemon partners for the weekend. Ash gets Snowy. Lillie gets Pikachu. Ash... copes.


**I wrote this in like two hours because the brain would not be quiet. Please enjoy!**

**...**

Ash wakes up and blinks at the ceiling. There are nightmares hanging over his head, blurry and indistinct, phrases murmured in a dream and quickly slipping through his fingers.

He's shaking all over, heart palpating in his chest and every breath hitching in his throat.

He blinks, half awake, and then finds himself standing up, swaying, shaky.

Something's wrong. Something's horribly, terribly, wrong.

Because Ash is awake, and he can't find Pikachu _anywhere. _

"Pikachu?" he whispers, hardly daring to breathe. The nightmare is clinging to his skin, distorting the shadows, carving them long, threatening to swallow him whole. "Pilachu, where are you? _Pikachu-" _

No answer. No reassuring flash of yellow. No reassuring best friend. When they're together, they can always pull through. When they're together, they can face anything.

But they're not, they're not, and the nightmare looms all the more for it.

"_ Pikachu!?" _

In the corner of the loft, Snowy lifts her white head, croons confusedly at him, chidingly. It's tired. She wants to sleep. Ash has disturbed her, messed everything up.

It's a snap back into reality, because right, _right- _

Pikachu is with Lillie. He'll be there for an entire weekend. He'll be perfectly safe, and Lillie might even get over her fear of touching him, and, and-

And none of that stops the fact that Ash desperately, _desperately _wants his best friend back by his side. Right away. _Now _.

The weekend stretches out before him, daunting. Ash hasn't been separated like this from Pikachu since that fateful day at the start of his journey. At least, never _purposefully _.

But Ash tries to not think about those other, n_ on-purposeful _times too much.

It feels wrong. It feels terrifying. A hundred terrible horrible things could be happening to him right now and Ash just wouldn't_ know. _Maybe Team Rocket has kidnapped him, or one of the island guardians has come in for a challenge, or he fell off a cliff and Ash wasn't there to catch him. Maybe-

But he's being ridiculous. Of _course _he's being ridiculous. His partner can take care of himself, and Pikachu is most probably perfectly fine, probably being stuffed full of good treats and fine grooming.

But it's the 'probably' that gets to Ash, sinks into his flesh and bones and fills his lungs up with _what ifs, _so full it's hard to breathe around it.

His fingers are shaking, and he brings them to his chest just to feel his heart pound, frantic, alive, alive, alive.

His world should not end just because his best friend isn't in his line of sight.

So why, then, does it feel like his entire life is crumbling around the edges?

He has no answer, and so instead he lifts his trembling hands to bury his head in them, breathes purposefully slowly into his palms, and settles in for the long wait.

He can do this. He can _do _this.

Pikachu is going to be just fine, and Ash can totally, totally do this.

Ash wakes up early. (He never went back to sleep.)

He stuffs himself full with breakfast, knowing Kukui will get suspicious otherwise. (He doesn't taste a single bite.)

He goes on an early morning run with Rockruff. (He pushes himself too hard, runs too far and too long and too fast until the little pokemon is heaving for breath and his own side aches with stitches. He picks the small creature up, tucks him to his chest and soothes the earnest little whimpers and barks, apologizes. He's not thinking straight. He should have been better.)

By the time they get back the rest of the house is awake and ready for the day. Snowy is hesitant without her trainer, looking almost as lost as Ash feels. Ash comforts her, and they train together, and it's fun, it's so fun-

Very purposefully and carefully, he makes sure not to let his thoughts dawdle on his partner, who feels regions away, not a few scant miles.

He does well until just before dinner, when he starts setting up the bowls for his team's pokefood and realizes that he's taken out one too many. He laughs, because how _silly _of him, and then he walks into the bathroom and shakes himself apart, because he can't do this _he can't do this and- _

He breathes. Reassembles all the pieces. Walks back out smiling.

In the back of his mind, the seconds tick down, and he counts every moment until Pikachu is safe in his arms again.

And that night, he lays awake, still waiting.

The weekend drags on too slowly. He thinks he's going crazy. He thinks Kukui has noticed something is off. He knows for certain that all his pokemon have.

There's a cold shock to all his systems, horrible and frightening and anxious. The _what if's _are pounding in time with the beats of his heart, screaming at him that he is alive and that something is terribly, terribly wrong all at once.

It's an all consuming fear, this. It's filling up his lungs, and Ash can breathe around it, but only just.

Ash has jumped off buildings for Pikachu. He has jumped off cliffs. He has died for his pokemon, and been loved so fiercely he was brought back to life. Pikachu is everything, _everything, _and without him his living nightmares walk in broad daylight.

When they're together, they can take on _anything. _

But Ash is alone, and it's so wrong it's sending tremors into his very bones.

He talks himself out of running all the way to the manor. Just to check in, just to _make sure. _Once. Twice. A dozen times. Pikachu is fine. Pikachu is just _fine. _

He has to be. Ash isn't sure what he'll do if he isn't.

Finally, _finally, _the weekend ends, Monday comes. _Finally. _

Ash wakes up early. (He never went to sleep.)

He runs, _runs, _all the way up to the school. Desperate and anxious and feeling like he might burst. There's this _tightness _to his chest and it won't go away and it's been too long, _too _long, two days doesn't seem like a lot but it is, it is, the whole wide world has fallen apart in less time, and been pulled back together.

Ash knows this all too well: he's seen it happen.

He waits by the gate, eyes peeled for Lillie's limo, nails picked at and raw. Snowy, by his side, croons excitedly, and he pets her absentmindedly. His hands shake.

It feels like hours before the long black car pulls into view. It feels like days.

But it does, it does, and without a second thought Ash is sprinting forward top greet it.

When Pikachu leaps out the open window to in a flying greeting, Ash is there to catch him.

He gets knocked over by the force of it, lands in the soft Alolan dirt as the mouse pokemon licks his cheeks and nose and eyelashes. The weight is familiar, comforting, warm, and despite all the air being knocked out of his chest, it finally feels like Ash can breathe again.

Pikachu croons, nuzzles his neck, curves his spin into Ash's gentle strokes. He can feel that familiar heartbeat with every pet, thrumming with electricity, _alive, alive, alive. _

Ash laughs, and he's not crying but his eyes are wet, and this is _ridiculous, _perfectly ridiculous, but he hasn't slept in two days and he is so, _so _relieved.

Pikachu is back, safe in his arms. The world did not end.

And if Pikachu sticks close for the rest of the day, if Ash holds on too tight and too long whenever his pokemon comes in for a cuddle, if both of them check too frequently to make sure their best friend is still in their line of sight-

Well, no one notices. Or, at least, no one makes a mention of it.

And that night, that night, Ash lays down up in his loft with Pikachu curled up on his chest. They're staring at each other, brown eyes on brown, and when Pikachu coos it is quiet and comforting and most importantly _here. _

"Yeah," Ash says, "yeah, let's not do that again."

The shadows stretch long, but they don't quite reach the two of them, lost in their own little world.

"Good night, buddy."

"_ Pika-chuuu…" _

Ash breathes deep. They have taken on the world together, two best friends against legendaries and prophecies and the most terrible of men. They have gotten through the very worst of experiences, came out of them still breathing, smiling, _living. _

And they will live through this.

Ash closes his eyes, senses the ball of fluff on his chest settle and relax. He can feel both of their heartbeats, mingling, content.

_Alive, alive, alive, _every beat whispers, so fragile and full of love. There's a moral here, about how a sense of safety isn't supposed to be something you can hold in the palm of your hand, how sometimes that's how these things turn out anyways.

It doesn't matter. Ash falls asleep listening to that steady rhythm, the way it sings of the softest and most important things.

Ash falls asleep. He rests easy.

Somewhere, the sun is rising.


End file.
